Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1887-11-12
The LABOR WORLD,
The Ten-Cents-a-Da Day Theory.

How to live and thrive upon IA dime
1 day ls the text upon which an eastern
writer is talking. He says it can be
| done, and proceeds to give examples
| of men who did it. The Peninsular
and Oriental Steamship company, he
says, employ East India coolies to do
| the hardest work upon their steamers,
because they are stronger, healthier,
| and can stand the climate better than
Euglishmen. Their living costs but 6
cents a day. The deck porters Of
Constantinople live on bread and figs,
carry 250 pounds on their shoulders.
The soldiers of some of the South
American states furnish their own food,
and are paid but 8 cents a day. The
hat braiding women of the Dutch West
Indies work for less than 6 cents a day
and manage to exist. Where climate
and natural production are favorable
people can live on no cents a dry. But
what Of itP Is it proposed to figure
men down to this in the United StatesP
The 10-cent idiots are a relic of the
dark ages. The Lancaster Gazette truth
fully says: There are people who re-
fuse to see that labor is asserting its
right to a share of the good things of
life. The period is past when a hun
dred or two men in any country could
divide among the nselves the Injuries,
giving the common people just enough
to enable them to do the work required
of them. Nature provides a more gen.
erous living than the 10-cent diet adj
mits Of. What is to become of the sur
plus product If people do not consume
itP The earth produces a surplus as
measured by our actual necessities,
and machinery, which multiplies by a
t%housandfold the working capacity
of man, puts into a form
for use very much more than man
actually needs. Why, then, should the
army of laboripg men be required TO
live on ten cents a dayP TIE increase
in products IN consequence of the in
v~ention and application to industries
of l~abor-saving machinery opens the
way to increased comforts on the part
of the working people. The standard
of living is higher now than it was fifty
years ago, and it will be higher fifty
years hence than now. Men who work
with their hands for a living viii have
more luxurles in the way Of food,
clothes, a~musements, and leisure at
the middle of the next century than
we enjoy now. The ten-cent school of
political economists is going out of
date. Furniture Workers Journal.
The majority of people in this coun-
try probably have no idea of the great
strength of federated labor in the Uni
ted States. The American Federation
of Labor now has a membership Of
575, GOO wage-workers. Its principal
objects are the encouragement and
formation of local trade and labor un-
ions. and the closer federation of such
societies through the organization Of
central trade and labor unions in every
city, and the further combination of
such bodies into State, Territorial or
Provincial organizstiors, to secure leg
~islation IL the interests of the work
ing masses; the establishment of
National and International Trades
unions based upon 81 strict recognition
of the anatomy of each trade and the
promotion and advancement of such
bodies; an American federation of Ma
tional and International Trades unions,
to aid and assist each other; and fur
thermore, to secure national legisla-
ton in the interests of the working peo-
Pile and influence public opinion by
peaceful and legal methods IN favor Of
organized labor. All the affairs Of the
federation are conducted in a most
economical manner.-Paterson Labor
Standard.
Speaking of child labor in the coal
regions of Pennsylvania, Mr.. George
A. Denison says: 1.-The miners boys
and girls have no childhood. Hun
dreds of children from seven to fifteen
years of age are at work ut
the hard coal mines slate picking, and
at the soft coal mines coke trimming
and mule driving. Hard, drudgipg
toll of these little ones all day long, in
the dnst and CRIME of the picking shed,
winter and summer. What wonder is
it hat the majority of graves in the
miners cemetery are short ones. A
stunted, dctrauded childhood, a sickly
and infrm youth, and a manhood
old and decrepit before its time;
this is not an uncommon experience
among these coal workers. 1t is true
there is q law %forbidding the employ
ment of your children in collieries on
the statute books, but the evidence is
convincing that it is rarely enforced.
The poverty of parents and the indiffer-
ence of the employers stand in the way.
AS late as 1888 there was no compul-
sorry school law in Pennsylvania and il
there is now, it is, like the law referred
to above, never enforced in coal re-
jions.